


Angels and Astronauts

by NoContractTermination



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Tales of Zestiria, Drama & Romance, Friendship, Getting Together, High Fantasy, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10037105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoContractTermination/pseuds/NoContractTermination
Summary: Johnny should probably figure out a little bit about himself before he goes on an epic, life-changing journey to help Ten purify the world. Fortunately, Ten thinks he can help by introducing Johnny to a pretty seraph named Taeil.





	

**Author's Note:**

> \- there are no plot spoilers for the Tales of Zestiria game/anime in this fic  
> \- enjoy!

Common knowledge around these parts was that Ten was the shepherd. 

He was raised in a place above the clouds and came into Johnny's life one day when Johnny was around 11. Ten's childhood was always lively with the sound of the sky and the colors of the wind. 

Johnny’s parents had kind of signed up for an important job when they agreed to raise Ten alongside Johnny, but they had connections with Elysia that dated back a few generations. It started from when distant ancestors of Johnny’s conjured up a kind of contract that gated Elysia off and made it inaccessible to normal humans. Humans were disease, and the contract made Elysia safe, so the seraphim agreed to keep sending shepherds through Johnny’s village, situated right up against the edge of the world. And now it was Ten’s turn.

Johnny had not-so-secretly resented Ten in the beginning not only because Ten got all the attention, but also no one had ever asked Johnny if he even wanted a little brother. "Okay, but little siblings don't really work that way," Ten pointed out, which made him that much easier to resent. 

"How would you know, you don’t even have parents," Johnny said, which was a low blow, even for a naive kid. He still regretted it now. 

But Ten just nodded with a thoughtful frown. "I mean, you’re not wrong." 

The conclusion Johnny came to was that Ten was a kind of pure you couldn’t fake, and that was why he was the shepherd. He was also exceptionally good at being The Chosen One. He had such a radiant, positive presence you just couldn't hate him if you _tried_. And Johnny totally tried. For like three weeks. And then he finally gave in and warmed up to Ten when Ten sketched him a picture of how his hometown Elysia looked and the faces of some of his best childhood seraphim friends. "They look old," Johnny said, his legs crossed as he looked on in wonder. Those were the first words he'd willingly said to Ten.

Ten paused, obviously surprised, then grinned a little to himself. "That's because they are. They’re actually even older than they look. Like, hundreds of years old!"

So that was why Ten always talked like he was 20 years older than he actually was, because he was surrounded by seraphim all the time telling him what to do and say. It was hard to hate him, but it was also hard to love him: his purity put a distance between him and normal humans. It was like how you could stand next to another kid and just intuitively _know_ you both picked your nose when you thought no one was looking. With Ten, it felt like… he didn’t pick his nose. Johnny felt a little bad for Ten then, robbed of a real childhood with real kids his age. "So you came here to escape," Johnny reasoned.

"Nah, gramps just said I had to," Ten said, pointing to his drawing of an old man with no eyes and a long beard. "I mean I love Elysia. But I should be prepared for when I have to go out on my own, right?"

"Go where?"

Ten looked at Johnny like he had three heads. "To purify the malevolence, duh," he said. "Wow, you kids really are ignorant these days."

"You are the same age as me," Johnny protested, but Ten was firm in his condescendence.

The shepherd was both a missionary and an educator. Their adherence to their duty allowed us all to live in peace and harmony. Johnny figured he didn’t need to know the rest and promptly dozed off in social studies class. He was always much more interested in science and engineering, at least the (small) part that didn’t pertain to seraphim and shepherds. It was always kind of ironic that he lived here in Camlann, then, the origin city, where devotion to the seraphim radiated the strongest in the entire world. Life was simple and dutiful, and Johnny instead dreamed of a place far away where people made machines and gadgets that performed computations.

Ten, completing what he’d consider his first mission as an educator, then explained all about the seraphim he grew up around. Ten was a good storyteller, and he even gave the seraphim names like _Hansol_ and _Doyoung_ , and his characters had reoccurring traits. For example, Hansol was a human as tall as a tree, and Doyoung was a very talkative rabbit. Maybe Johnny took it in a little better because with Ten, it was like reading a book about a make-believe land. In school, you were expected to accept it as reality.

"But you’re human, right? You’re still a kid, right?" said Johnny.

Ten laughed. "Yeah, I eat and sleep just like you guys. And I get hungry and have to poop and stuff."

That was reassuring, because in some ways Ten seemed unreal. Like Ten wasn't really his brother but somewhere between human and seraph himself. That's what the shepherd was supposed to be anyway: a liason between our world and the world of the seraphim who existed in the same plane but between us, in the spaces we couldn't see. "But them, they’re not real," Johnny said, pointing to Ten’s drawings.

Ten furrowed his eyebrows. "Yeah they are. They’re my actual friends. And other seraphim exist around us."

"But we can’t see them," Johnny said.

"There are things that are real that you don’t have to see," Ten pointed out. "Like air. And love."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "That’s because you can _feel_ air and love. Seraphs, we can’t see or feel or hear them." Air was a combination of chemicals people called oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, and love was a chemical release of endorphins in the brain. Johnny knew all about that stuff. He loved reading the theories people from the other side came up with about life.

Ten claimed you could feel the seraphim, or at least their effect on the world. "The world used to be a horrible place," Ten said, waving his arms around with glitter in his eyes. "With dragons, and wars, and monsters, called _hellions_. And if you had enough malevolence in you, you’d turn into one."

But then the shepherd came, claimed Ten, with their band of seraphim, and purified the malevolence in the world. And over hundreds of generations, malevolence all but disappeared, and the world had been peaceful since then.

Johnny remembered a few facts from school, at least the ones that contained numbers, like how the last war was over 500 years ago when Hyland and Rolance fought for control of the holy ground of Kharlan. Narratives— well, they were a little harder to grasp. The greed that prompted people to fight dissipated, people said, because of the arrival of the shepherd. 

Seraphim answered to everything. It was like a buzzword for when you didn’t know what to say. The meaning of life? Seraphim. What’s for dinner tomorrow? Seraphim. 19 x 834? Seraphim. Sometimes it felt like Johnny wasn’t really hearing it at all, like when you read a word too much and it didn’t sound like an actual word anymore. 

That was Johnny’s seven years growing up with the shepherd and teaching Ten, in the only way he knew how, to think of the world in a different way. Ten was diligent and steadfast, and the wariness he’d attracted from other kids eventually became the dutiful reverence it was supposed to be as everyone grew up around them too. It was now the summer after Ten and Johnny graduated from high school. The so-called "journey" to "purify malevolence" they had been anticipating ever since Ten came into the world was scheduled to start that autumn. And Johnny was afraid. 

—

But in this world, you weren’t supposed to be afraid. Fear was malevolence; the seraphim were supposed to make you feel invincible. You were supposed to have faith, and Johnny felt like he didn’t. He could turn into a hellion one day and no one would ever save him. 

Maybe because it was easier that way. The unexpected and unknown was supposed to be terrifying, even if nothing bad could really happen. Johnny hated thinking that they depended on the seraphim to keep the world at peace because what if they just went away one day? Johnny rejected the seraphim because he _feared_. And he feared the fear itself, in part because he would soon become a squire of the shepherd. He was curious about all the wrong parts of the world, and no one was going to help him figure it out, because why question the world when it was working so well?

"You’re still awake?" Ten said, drumming his hands on his belly. They shared a room in a lakeside ranch where they lived with Johnny’s mother. They liked to leave the window open at night because the sound of the waves drowned out the others’ snoring.

Johnny grunted an affirmative. 

Some shepherds liked being worshipped. Ten had always just wanted to be a normal kid; he _was_ still just a kid after all. You just learned he was the shepherd and not to treat him too differently than anyone else, which were two highly contradictory instructions. But Johnny was used to being contradictory. He believed in the things that were already cemented in fact. He only spoke his mind because deep down, he was afraid.

The buzz of excitement from the graduation dinner still hadn’t worn off completely. "Whatcha thinking about?" Ten chirped.

"Fear," replied Johnny.

Ten made a satisfied, curious noise. "You afraid of something?"

"Mm," Johnny said. It was easier admitting things to Ten, who was, again, so warm that he seemed not entirely real. That, and he _was_ still more or less Johnny’s brother.

"Wanna know what makes you feel afraid?" Ten said cheekily. You could tell he was grinning just from the tone of his voice.

"Okay," Johnny replied warily. "I’ll bite."

"The seraphim," said Ten.

Johnny, staring at the ceiling, scrunched his nose and didn’t reply.

"Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re still going on about that non-believing nonsense," whined Ten after waiting through Johnny’s telling silence. 

"Well, _you_ can’t just say 'seraphim' to explain everything," Johnny shot back, and Ten sighed, rolling over on his side and staring at Johnny across the room.

"But it _is_ them," he said. "I can see them, you know. Fear just means they’re warning you."

"I’ll believe it when I see it," Johnny said, which was what he always said. The other option was _fear is the fight-or-flight reaction passed down from our animal ancestors as a natural response to impending danger_ , so you could see why this one was simpler. Ten usually grumbled and shut up or changed the topic. How could Johnny be best friends and pseudo-brothers with the shepherd for seven years now when he didn’t even believe in seraphim? But it just went to show that friendship transcended even their shackles, maybe.

But this time, Ten did his usual grumble, and then after some time of shifting around all antsy under his blankets, he said, "Then I’ll show you."

" _What_ ," said Johnny stupidly. Ten had never offered this before, maybe because of some unspoken "seraphim" rule. Being the shepherd seemed complicated, too complicated for Ten himself, but then again he did always have those seraphim to remind him about things he couldn’t keep in his own brain. Ten rolled out of his side of the bed, shoved on his glasses, and shuffled into his slippers.

"C’mon," Ten said tiredly, and Johnny could only follow behind him.

They’d walked that path down the side of the cliff a million times together in the dark, bare-footed in the middle of the night. That was where the ocean water was the warmest. It was good to disinfect wounds, and heaven knew they spent a lot of time getting themselves into trouble as kids. 

Grass barely grew there anymore; it was just worn down into a dusty dirt pathway and dropped off where the cliff only went above the water a few feet during high tide. The moon was high in the sky, and its cool glow bumped up against the fire from the lanterns they always had hanging out front. 

Some people could see or hear the seraphim working in the background of their lives. People reported hearing whispers or spotting someone in the crowd that looked familiar, but you couldn’t quite place where you’d seen them before. And then they’d walk behind a pole or something and not come out the other side. Maybe you’d seen that face in your dreams before. They showed themselves to the people whose beliefs were the weakest. They were likely to appear when you least expected it. Which was why it was so weird that Ten was claiming he could deliberately introduce Johnny to one right here, right now, in the middle of a summer night with the sound of the waves splashing against the cliffs and nothing but seraphim on their minds. 

"Touch my arm, keep holding it," Ten instructed, frozen right up against the cliff and trying to concentrate. Johnny was so dazed by this new, serious side of Ten that he followed along wordlessly. Ten seemed nervous and vulnerable, which made him a little more human. Johnny smiled. And Ten closed his eyes and took in a deep breath and held it, and he moved his hands over his ears, blocking them tightly. 

That was how Johnny met Moon Taeil.

At that time, Taeil was just a voice. "Hello, Johnny," he said, and Johnny almost let go of Ten and jumped back. He squeezed Ten’s arm for dear life instead, took a quick, loud inhale, and glanced around to where the sound came from, but there was nothing.

"Who…" was all Johnny could say.

Taeil’s voice was like the warm slices of honey cake Johnny’s mom would offer them right out of the oven during the winter. It was moist and sweet and soft, and just the slightest bit sticky and you could never quite get it out of your ears, like how honey stuck to your fingers all day. "I’m Taeil," he said. "And… I finally get to _talk_ to you."

Ten was starting to turn blue. He tapped Johnny’s hand in warning and then breathed out a big rush of air. Suddenly, they were on the cliff again. They’d never left, but somehow Taeil’s voice seemed to drown out the waves. His very presence was like a damper on the rest of Johnny’s senses, and letting go of that pedal felt like finishing a good book and having to go back to the real world. "It’s part of my shepherd training," Ten was saying proudly between gasps for breath, bending over with his hands on his knees. "Like— if I cut off my own senses and act as a medium between the seraphim and you, then you can hear them, too."

"You’re like a conduit," Johnny said, and Ten nodded, huffing at the ground and catching his breath.

Johnny looked out into the ocean at the spot where the moonlight caught the top of the water. Taeil’s voice lingered in the corners of his ears, in every little crevice. "So, how was it?" Ten said with a grin, but Johnny was already thinking of the next time he’d maybe get to hear Taeil again.

Feelings had a way with coming on intense and all of a sudden for Johnny, which was not at all how he operated. Rushing into things was never smart, so the last thing he wanted to do was sound overeager. Taeil may have been a seraph, but he was just one in the grand scheme of things. Taeil was just a voice, and Johnny was deluded by shock and wonder. But he did manage to sneak in an apathetic-sounding, "So, is he invisible or something?" as they were scrubbing their feet off and slipping back into bed.

Ten was sometimes way too perceptive for only having lived with them for a few years. He grinned to himself. "I guess you can’t see him yet because your affinity for the seraphim isn’t high enough."

Johnny pretended to understand what Ten was talking about and rolled over in his bed. It wasn’t uncommon that Ten left him with more questions than answers.

"But if we practice more, I think you’ll be able to soon," Ten added offhandedly, and Johnny hated that his heart skipped.

—

Practice sessions only lasted as long as Ten could hold his breath. Johnny considered imploring him to get swimming more and work on his lung power in the name of their ambiguous future "adventures." Ten waved him off. "You’re talking about _way_ back in the day, when shepherds would have to fight and the world was full of monsters." Johnny was a little curious but mostly obstinate. Ten was right about there not being a need to swim across a pond or fight sea monsters anymore; actually, imagining Ten fighting with a sword was pretty funny.

The real reason, of course, was because Johnny couldn’t have a decent conversation with Taeil in the minute or so Ten could hold his breath. Most of the time, Johnny didn’t know what to ask and Taeil didn’t know how to respond and they fumbled for words like lovesick teenagers. "What do you look like?" Johnny asked stupidly the next time they talked, and he heard Taeil laugh. 

"Um," Taeil replied, letting it trail on for a little while as Johnny nearly vibrated with anticipation. Johnny had never considered himself an impatient person, but Taeil’s voice was powerful. Not in a loud and commanding way, but insidious, like an addictive drug. "A person?" Taeil finished blandly just as Ten let out a loud _whoosh_ of breath.

"We were in the middle of a conversation," Johnny complained, and Ten hacked out some laughs.

"Sorry man, I didn’t know you were this interested in him," said Ten.

"I’m not," said Johnny, and Ten gave him a skeptical look. "Okay, but before, seraphim, malevolence, whatever the hell you guys go on about— it was all pretend. Now it’s real. You can’t expect me _not_ to be curious."

Ten frowned at that and nodded after a moment. "Yeah." He turned to Johnny and said, "Taeil says that’s rude. He says he’s always been real."

When he put it like that— which was admittedly exactly how Johnny said it— it pierced Johnny in the heart a little. "I’m sorry," Johnny said to the air, and Ten laughed and pushed his head to the right.

"Other side, bro," Ten said. "But Taeil laughed. And said it’s okay. You’ve always been like that."

They were eating lunch in a clearing a little ways out from Johnny’s home but still flanking the lake. Ten said Taeil never left there, and Johnny subsequently found himself spending a lot more time by the water. That lake was never particularly interesting before; there wasn’t even any beach to relax on and nowhere you could swim without some chance the tide would lower and just leave you stranded on the rocks. Even Ten, as energetic as he was, spent most of his time "just looking" out over the water. Johnny didn’t see the point in this, especially since he’d woken up to the same view for as long as he could remember, and there was nothing new to look at. Ten insisted that he just wasn’t looking in the right places. 

"How long?" Johnny said, staring at where Ten indicated Taeil would be, but there wasn’t even the outline of a person there. Johnny didn’t know what he was expecting; maybe some hint like how the air changed where it was hot over a fire, or when there was gas running through it, or maybe Taeil would be faint and translucent and slowly come into view as time passed. But right now, there was nothing but the sky behind Ten.

"How long what?" said Ten.

"You know, how long has Taeil been… watching?"

Ten laughed. "He’s laughing at you. Said, 'The world doesn’t revolve around you, boy.'"

Johnny flushed at that. 

"I think you visited a lot more after I came around, though, right?" Ten said, turning to where Taeil was supposed to be. There was a warmth that blew through the area, but it could’ve been purely psychological. "Yeah, everyone’s curious about the shepherd. Am I all you expected?"

Johnny couldn’t help but be displeased at this interaction. And it must’ve showed on his face because then Ten turned to him. 

"Oh, don’t look all sour like that," said Ten, smacking Johnny’s bare knee. "Taeil said you’re much more interesting, anyway."

"In what way?" Johnny said, maybe too quickly. 

Ten beamed, grinning along with Taeil’s supposed response. "'In how desperately you cling to your own fickle reality.'"

Johnny balked. "Was that supposed to be an insult? I think that was an insult."

Ten laughed and placed his palm against his thighs in delight. "Taeil says he likes things that are different. He said I’m too similar to seraphim to be interesting. And that you’re even worse than most humans at understanding how the world works. It’s fascinating."

Unlike when Yuta spontaneously insulted him in class, Taeil’s little teasing remarks were cute and seemed completely harmless. Maybe it was the way Ten delivered them that made them so enticing. Johnny pressed on for more. "How are we so different?" he said, raising his eyebrow and glancing around the empty space, searching fruitlessly for Taeil’s eyes. 

Ten watched Johnny and pointed at a space about a little below eye-level for Johnny. "Here," he said, brushing off his tunic. "I’ll try again."

When Ten’s hands closed over his ears, Johnny felt like he was in another world again. How Ten balanced this dreamlike limbo between the layers of everyday life was a mystery; Johnny couldn’t drag himself back to the real world if he wanted to. If this was the seraphim world, existing alongside reality but not quite on the same plane, maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. Taeil hummed, teasing the sound of his voice a little before he began speaking. "You humans try to use _your_ reality to explain the things you don’t understand," Taeil said. "As if the world happens in chronological order, and you can explain everything with things that already happened."

"But we do," Johnny protested. 

"You _try_ ," replied Taeil coyly. "But you still have a name for the inexplicable."

"And what is that?" Johnny breathed out.

Taeil’s laugh was like praise to a puppy. "Magic."

Johnny _wanted_ to travel the world. He wanted to go with Ten. He was always a proponent of knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. It drew him to reading self-help books, and after a while he amassed a random wealth of useless things he knew how to do, like clean out a fireplace or rewire the electric stove. The promise of a long exciting adventure on the horizon was one good thing about Ten coming to them, besides that Ten pretty much got everything he wanted and by extension everything Johnny wanted. But as Johnny grew older, he stopped asking Ten to get things for him; he didn’t like depending on other people for things anyway. But Ten promised that when they got older, he’d take Johnny with him on his quest to purify the world. Johnny pretended to know what Ten was talking about and anticipated some weird travel-and-self-discovery kind of retreat. Ten said it felt more routine, like the journey of a postal truck delivering mail, except it never ended.

"There’s a lot less malevolence than before," Ten said. "Shepherds used to have to, like, fight and kill the people who became hellions. But now most hellions can just be talked down."

Dragons were what seraphs became when they absorbed too much malevolence. But they were pretty much extinct, which was supposed to be a good thing. Johnny thought that maybe were he to see a dragon, it’d be easier to swallow all this historical bullshit. "Maybe if I upset Taeil enough, he’ll turn into one," Johnny said glumly.

Ten shot him a dark look. "Don’t joke around about that. Once seraphim are consumed by malevolence, they can’t turn back like normal people can."

"What?" Johnny said. No one told him that.

"Don’t you listen at all in school?" said Ten, exasperated. "Shouldn’t you have learned this in middle school science?"

"Look, it’s hard for me to understand chemistry, okay?" Johnny replied. "It’s not something I can physically _see_ happening. I barely passed, man." 

"That’s why they all live around here, near the holy land," Ten explained. "There’s way too much latent malevolence out past Biroclef. Mount Mabinogio is all but in ruins because of it." Ten leaned on his knees and listened to the wind blowing through his floppy black hair. "We’ve lost many brothers and sisters due to it. Sometimes children had to kill their own parents, or lovers their own spouses to end the suffering."

Johnny was quiet. He thought about this long and hard that night and couldn’t go to sleep. He remembered teachers lecturing about something vaguely like this when he was a freshman in high school, but Ten once again put it in a way so personal that Johnny couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for doubting that stuff like that actually happened in the past, thousands of years ago. The world was so peaceful now that violence and suffering like that was almost unimaginable.

Ten snored softly from the other side of the room, curled up on his side with the blankets thrown to the foot of the bed. The wind caused the lantern outside to clank rhythmically against the metal gutters and piping, and a low whistle came through where they left the window open slightly at the bottom. Someone was humming a familiar tune, though Johnny didn’t know the name or where he’d heard it before. The room felt hazy around him, like a bunch of little lights were diffusing the shadows and edges of everything.

"Magic, huh," Johnny said.

The humming stopped for a moment. "I heard we live in the realm of it," someone said faintly, then continued humming.

"Who’s there?" Johnny mumbled, suddenly a little sleepy. In the several generations their family had lived in this hut, there had never once been trouble: no break-ins, no violence, no house fires. Johnny’s reflexes were slow as a result, and he didn’t know how to defend himself or really fight, but he towered over most people and could appear intimidating enough to scare away misfits. Which was why there was no reason to worry. Reflecting back on what Ten said today, maybe Johnny took his peaceful life a little for granted.

"Johnny?" the person said, muffled by a sudden crashing of waves against the cliff. A voice like that could only belong to—

"Taeil?" Johnny replied.

"You can hear me now," Taeil said in wonder. His voice was closer now, like it was coming from just outside the window. "Must be because Ten is asleep."

"The practice worked," Johnny said. It still kind of felt like he was dreaming everything, but he didn’t say that part out loud. 

"It helped you believe," corrected Taeil. "Affinity doesn’t come from practice, it comes from inside. Ten just never told you because it was easier for you to believe you were practicing."

Johnny scooted up in his bed and looked around, but Taeil was still nowhere to be seen. "You guys are rascals."

Taeil laughed quietly. "Hey, I came clean. It’s said that lying in excess breeds malevolence."

"But there isn’t much malevolence these days, right?" Johnny said. 

"You catch on quick, boy."

"Johnny," Johnny said quickly. "I’m Johnny."

"I know," Taeil replied. "Did I not just call you by name a few minutes ago?" Then there was that silence again as they both realized they knew each other rather intimately for never having interacted before. "I’m not used to talking to you like this," Taeil admitted after a moment. "Directly to your face. You grew up right under my nose, you know."

"You knew me as a baby?!" Johnny hissed, and Taeil laughed again.

"You could say that," he said airily. "Though not well. I was younger then, too."

Johnny gulped and flushed a little, hugging his knees to his chest. The summer was warm as usual but breezy along the coastline. "What do you look like?" Johnny pressed on again.

Taeil didn’t respond for a while, long enough for Johnny to think the link might’ve been broken, or he woke up from his dream without noticing. Just as he was about to sink back into the mattress, Taeil said hesitantly, "Not very exciting. Just a normal person."

Johnny snorted. "Didn’t know seraphs could be insecure."

"I just don’t want you to be underwhelmed when you finally see me," Taeil replied, huffing. 

"What does it matter how I feel?" said Johnny. He smirked a little to himself. "You said the world doesn’t revolve around me, anyway."

Taeil huffed again and said nothing.

Johnny didn’t know what he was expecting. Taeil said he looked like a normal person, so there went the idea of angel wings and a centaur-like body and the possibility of a mermaid tail. But there was a lot of variation in humans, too. Was his hair long? Was he tall or short? Were his eyes a natural color? Did he wear normal clothes? Johnny flushed at the thought of Taeil maybe being naked, and Taeil seemed to notice, wherever he was.

"What are you thinking about, idiot?" Taeil said, and Johnny grinned despite the blush in his cheeks. It was a happy, warm kind of sensation that came out of nowhere; he wasn’t running a fever or hot with exertion. He just felt _warm_ , logical explanation be damned. It was inexplicable. It was, as Taeil said, magic.

"You," Johnny replied softly, drifting off to sleep.

—

Ten seemed surprised but not unhappy when Johnny recalled the previous night’s events to him. "I’m honestly not sure if it was just a dream or what," Johnny said, rubbing the back of his head over a bowl of cereal. 

"Maybe because you grew up here in Camlann?" Ten said thoughtfully, playing with his spoon. "Most people can’t sense seraphim until they become squires or otherwise affiliated with the shepherd."

"I mean, you’re the shepherd, and we’re brothers," Johnny pointed out, and Ten seemed to brighten up at this. Johnny didn’t openly acknowledge their relationship very often, and he knew this too and was feeling a little bad about everything that morning, an aftereffect maybe of wondering when Taeil would come back to him again.

"You’re right," said Ten, swinging his feet. "But just saying, some people also have a naturally higher affinity. For no real reason."

Johnny scrunched up his nose, stirring his oats around in the milk. "I like the first theory better."

Ten rolled his eyes. "You just spoke to a seraph you never knew existed last night, and you still think everything in the world needs an explanation."

Taeil ended up saying something eerily similar that night. "You know, believing that there’s an answer to everything is just as idealistic as accepting that there isn’t." The good thing was that they didn’t have to ask Ten to nearly pass out from oxygen deprivation just to have a conversation anymore. And Ten was never opposed to more sleep; the kid could sleep like a log sometimes, probably to replenish most efficiently the energy he spent bouncing around these days, with his voyage coming on soon.

"That’s deep," Johnny replied, staring at the ceiling. He’d given up on trying to look for Taeil for now, since developments in their relationship— or, in his _affinity_ — tended to happen when he least expected them. Also if he thought about it too long he’d be hard pressed to half-suffocate Ten with his pillow in an attempt to catch a glimpse of Taeil. 

"You get thinking about deep things when you have nothing to do all day," Taeil explained. 

"What _do_ you do then?" Johnny asked. Why hadn’t he thought to ask that before? Maybe because Taeil still didn’t have shape and form, so it was hard to imagine him doing anything at all.

"The city of Ladylake is on the other side of this body of water," said Taeil. Johnny knew basic geography, but he’d never bothered to visit because their little house didn’t have a dock and it was more trouble to catch a ship over there from Camlann than it was to just walk the extra few miles to Derris Kharlan. Ladylake was no closer to the Biroclef Ridge that separated the reality Johnny knew from the reality that lied beyond, anyway. 'Beyond' was where he wanted to go: maybe to Tokyo in Japan, or Silicon Valley, which were rumored to be technological metropolises of the outside world, but no one here had any idea how to get there. It sucked that they were content with just waiting around for those people to come _here_ to Camlann, a dinky little rural enclave just outside the holy city of Derris Kharlan, nestled between the near side of this world and the gates to Elysia. 

Generally, the farther you traveled from the holy city, the more new things you’d find. Mount Mabinogio and the Biroclef Ridge separated them from the Vatican City, which led out to Rome, the Mediterranean Sea, then to Turkey, Isreal, and much more of Asia, a giant geographic plain rich in biomes influenced by subterranean events and the origin of the universe. Apparently out there, they had a different way of doing things: they built things with their own hands and competed for fame and fortune. They explored and invented; they used old technologies to create new ones, and they could talk to each other at the blink of an eye and send mail to each other within seconds. You wouldn’t find anything like that in little old Ladylake, anyway. "More malevolence crops up in Ladylake than over here, so I usually spend my time there," Taeil went on.

Johnny, once again, pretended to understand the importance of this so-called 'malevolence' when the discoveries of the world were almost right at their fingertips, just no one wanted to reach for them. "Okay," he said lamely.

Taeil laughed. "It’s okay if you don’t get it. I don’t really, either. As long as I do my duties there at the shrine every day, then I’m free afterward to just waste time."

"Sounds boring," said Johnny. 

Taeil made a thoughtful noise. "Sometimes, but I’d take this over the old days in a heartbeat."

Johnny forgot how old the seraphim really were sometimes. "Were you around at that time?" he murmured, thinking once again of seraphim turning into dragons and begging to be murdered at the hands of family. Taeil sounded so soothing, so serene. It was preposterous something like that could ever have happened.

"No, but I know people who were," said Taeil, and Johnny shifted up in his bed a little. Taeil sounded impish when he continued, "What, are you interested or something?"

Johnny frowned. "M’not," he muttered.

"Now you just sound like a child," Taeil replied. "There’s no shame in wanting to learn."

"I do learn," Johnny protested. "Just not about… that useless stuff."

"The past isn’t useless," said Taeil, still calm and sure.

"You don’t need to know the past to change the future."

"But you need it to preserve the present."

Verbal banter wasn’t how Johnny imagined spending his nights with Taeil, but Taeil seemed relaxed, and it was actually fun. It passed time, even though it didn’t really accomplish anything tangible. Maybe he should write them down, his conversations with Taeil, so that they wouldn’t just escape into the wind with nothing to show for it. Johnny hated to think that someday he might not remember any of this happening. He hated that some day he might question even his own grasp on reality, and that was where realism came to a halt, and there were no answers after that, and it frightened him. "The past could be all made up, you know," Johnny pointed out quietly. "It’s just memories. We don’t have any evidence that it actually happened that way."

"We have us, the seraphim," said Taeil. It sounded like he was smiling. "And our stories."

"Your stories are just memories."

"Memories are powerful things."

"Prove it," Johnny breathed. Taeil felt closer than before though the window hadn’t moved. The gap Johnny left earlier that night was wide enough to fit a small person. So Taeil was small and nimble. Johnny imagined Taeil in his lap, maybe, or crawling up to his side on his small bed.

"I have no reason to lie to you," murmured Taeil, a ghost of a breath across Johnny’s face.

And then he was gone, and Johnny somehow sensed this. He flopped back against his pillow. This was essentially what bothered him most about the unknown. It was filled with things you couldn’t do anything to change, and Johnny hated that. It wasn’t fair. He hated that the only thing he could depend on was the inevitable unpredictability of the world, and he hated that Taeil was a product of that.

—

"There are bags under your eyes," Ten pointed out knowingly a few mornings later.

Johnny grunted. 

"You’ve been talking to him, haven't you?"

Johnny shoved a big spoonful of oats into his mouth and didn’t respond.

Ten, of course, took this as an affirmative. Ten was right. "A 'realist' and a seraph, huh," he said happily. "Didn’t expect you two to get on as well as this. But then again, the world is full of unpredictable things."

Johnny groaned. 

They were bottling water from the spring by the lake that day and delivering it to traveling merchants, who brought it inland to distribute throughout Derris Kharlan. Today, in preparation for the trip, they’d been tasked with asking some of the merchants for the best and most popular routes through every city on this side of the Biroclef Ridge. Johnny thought he might pick up a few pointers on what lied beyond, too, but no one ever knew anything and most scoffed at him for even asking.

The merchants usually approached the spring on foot. Ten was the shepherd after all, and everyone wanted to get a look at him and receive his blessing before he made off on his trip. And he greeted them with enthusiasm and an innate grace that Johnny couldn't help but begrudgingly admire.

Today Johnny stayed back behind the well packing bottles. Ten thought he might scare the merchants away with how tired he looked. Johnny didn't exude the endless dignity and welcoming aura Ten had anyway, so he didn't argue with this and instead just did his job wordlessly. 

A particularly large group of merchants came by around lunchtime with empty wagons and boxes and hung around conversing for a while as they waited for Johnny and Ten to fill enough bottles to satisfy their order. "We're with the inner district," one of them explained. "You know, students, clerics, travelers living together in close proximity."

"That's wonderful," Ten said. "That you provide for the underprivileged."

The merchant waved his hands up frantically. "Oh no, it's you giving us this blessed water that's the wonderful thing!"

Ten laughed. "It's just plain water, but if it helps, consider it blessed." Johnny looked on fondly as Ten added, "I do know the lord of the land personally, though. He's kind and generous and would want you to have it."

The merchants guild buzzed with exuberance at Ten's words, and Johnny continued his task. After a little while, he sensed someone approaching him. Johnny didn't pay the person mind until they picked up one of the glass bottles. It was an unspoken rule not to handle the unpackaged merchandise, but Johnny didn't really care for rules, as long as they weren’t causing any havoc. When he looked up, there was a boy standing in front of him about his own age, inspecting the bottle carefully as if purposely trying not to meet Johnny's eye.

"Beautiful glass they've got here," the boy seemed to say to himself.

Johnny cleared his throat in case the boy hadn't noticed him. "Can I help you?" Johnny said hesitantly. 

The wide-eyed look the boy gave him was one of such bewilderment Johnny started thinking for a minute his face really _was_ scaring away the customers. But the boy didn't look fearful; there was something radiant about his eyes that made him appear younger than he probably was, and the way his eyebrows shot up and stretched his face out made his skin look smooth and plump.

"Yes," the boy finally replied, watching Johnny carefully. Johnny stared right back, part as a challenge and part not wanting to look away. The more he looked at him, the more beautiful the boy became, like something you didn't notice upon first glance. Admittedly Johnny wouldn't have spared him much attention had he passed him on the street except maybe to marvel at how small he was. Ten was the shortest person Johnny knew, and this kid stood at about Ten's height but he was softer around the edges like he'd already grown into his body and was just naturally going to stay that way no matter how much he ate or exercised. "How much for this glass?" he said.

"We don't sell these," Johnny replied. "They're ammenities. Complimentary."

The boy stretched his limbs out and skipped up to Johnny with a familiar, strange elation. Johnny noticed then that his clothing didn't match that of the other merchants, though it wasn't obvious. His tunic was longer and a deep, elegant blue that didn't look like it was made for traveling. "Isn't it great how the world works that way?" he said.

"Taeil," said Johnny breathlessly, and Taeil smiled up at him.

"Meet me at the house after your work?"

Johnny couldn’t stop staring at the way Taeil’s white collar fluttered in the breeze against his neck, and how it curled down revealing a little V of his skin just under his collarbones. Taeil as just a voice was already alluring, but this was just unfair. "But Ten has—" Johnny started, his throat suddenly dry. "… _Oh_."

Taeil pushed against Johnny’s chest lightly, his hand like fire searing through Johnny’s clothes. The way the corner of his lip curled up made his face look both firm and soft, pliable like dough. Johnny wanted to touch. Otherwise Taeil still wouldn't seem real.

—

By the time Johnny stumbled into his and Ten’s shared room late that afternoon, the sun was already low on the horizon and his heart was thrumming with anticipation. He’d practically run there while at the same time trying not to appear too obvious. Ten and his mother made off for the other side of town to stock up on some ingredients, because apparently Ten should know at least the basics of cooking before he left. Taeil was already waiting in Johnny’s room when Johnny shuffled inside, closing the door behind him. They were alone. 

Johnny leaned back against the door to try and compose himself, but as soon as Taeil came within an arm’s distance, Johnny reached out for him. His hand landed just above Taeil’s waist, and yes, Taeil was very much real, and very much there. Taeil let himself be pulled in with a gentle smile, and Johnny buried his face in Taeil’s hair. It smelled like grass and a human being.

"You didn’t tell me you were this beautiful," Johnny breathed, leaning down so that his lips touched the shell of Taeil’s ear. Taeil shivered in his arms. 

"I don’t get that one often," Taeil admitted, and Johnny made a tsking noise. Taeil loped his arms around Johnny’s neck and pulled himself up, surprisingly strong, to kiss Johnny’s lips. He was gentle but clearly holding himself back, trembling and stiff as he pecked at Johnny uncertainly. 

Johnny opened his eyes and watched Taeil’s eyebrows furrow, his breathing harsh and concentrated. "Are you okay?" Johnny mumbled, and Taeil laughed a little strained.

"It’s been a long time since I’ve touched a human," he admitted. It was then Johnny noticed that Taeil was pressed up against him, and Johnny could feel the curves and edges of every inch of his body, from his knobby knees under thin pants to the curve in his back to the bulge near his pelvis, insistent against Johnny’s leg. The airy, fluent Taeil Johnny talked to at night seemed to be fading into a distant memory. The Taeil in front of him now was wide-eyed, curious, and a little bashful, but not afraid. 

Johnny smiled and kissed the tip of Taeil’s nose. "It’s okay, I’ve never done this before."

Taeil made a cute surprised little noise. "Me neither."

"So you seraphs don’t sleep around with each other?" Johnny said teasingly, and Taeil flicked his shoulder.

"I could say the same for you, rowdy teenage boys."

If everything seemed to be developing too quickly, it wasn’t, for two reasons. 1: Taeil wasn’t wrong when he implied that boys (and girls) Johnny’s age tended to sleep around. The summer after graduating high school was notorious for being a wild time spent dismantling the reputation you’d worked so hard to build up the past four years just because you could. And 2: it was a fling, nothing more. Johnny was leaving in a few months, and Taeil knew that. 

Taeil gasped when his back hit the bed, Johnny pushing his knees apart and looming over him. Ten and his mother could be back at any time, so they didn’t bother with clothes. Johnny rucked up Taeil’s tunic and palmed him through his pants, drowning in the loud moan Taeil let out when he bucked into Johnny’s hand. Johnny grunted and leaned down on his forearm, close enough for Taeil to reach up and pull him down for a kiss.

"Come on, babe," Johnny murmured and Taeil whimpered, fumbling with Johnny’s belt buckle as Johnny sucked Taeil’s tongue into his mouth. Johnny groaned embarrassingly loud when Taeil finally shoved his hand down the front of Johnny’s pants and pulled his dick out, jerking him off at a quick pace. It was way better than his own hand; Taeil’s grip was firm and frantic, faltering as he came apart under Johnny. He turned his head to the side and breathed in pants and gasps as Johnny staked claim to his neck, biting and sucking dark marks into his skin that had to hurt but only made Taeil moan louder. He tightened his grip on Johnny and flicked his thumb over the tip, making Johnny lose his hold and come all of a sudden over Taeil’s hand. 

Taeil stroked him through his orgasm, turning back toward him to kiss him sweetly. And when Johnny pulled away, he was looking down at Taeil with dark eyes. Taeil was flushed and wide-eyed like he’d seen something indecent, and Johnny composed himself and concentrated on Taeil. 

"I know you’re close," Johnny said quietly. Taeil let out a breath as Johnny nudged his legs apart with his own, completely enveloping Taeil’s cock with his hand. Taeil’s whines and whimpers sounded desperate, and Johnny kissed him languidly while jerking him off quick and hard. "Come for me, sweetie," Johnny continued against Taeil’s lips. "I want to hear you."

" _Johnny_ ," Taeil gasped, bucking up into his hand and arching his back. "Oh my god, Johnny, I’m— I’m coming, I’m coming," he said, his voice breaking in the middle as he came against his stomach.

Taeil breathed heavily while coming down from his high, his back lifting from the bed over and over again. He looked beautiful like that, radiant in a way Johnny didn’t think anyone could replicate. And before he knew what he was doing, he kissed Taeil’s lips again, sucking gently then letting go, repeating the motion slowly with his mouth until Taeil was doing the same. 

Johnny only broke the kiss to reach for tissues on the nightstand, making Taeil grin at him warmly behind plush lips. Out in the hallway, there was the sound of someone rattling the lock on the front door.

"Shit, Ten is here," Johnny said, and Taeil laughed and disappeared into a small glow of light, like a firefly but cooler.

"Let’s do this again some time," Taeil said. His voice was the same echo Johnny had heard all those nights before he could see Taeil in person. And suddenly, _not believing_ in seraphim wasn’t an option anymore. Like, somewhere in Johnny’s head he _knew_ his entire life was turning upside down, and that nothing would be quite as simple as it used to be. But it was exciting at the same time, because anything unexpectedly bad that could happen was worth it for Taeil.

—

"So, theoretically, if we were to have sex in public, what would other people see?" Johnny said, lying back against the blanket he’d laid out on the grass and staring at the sky.

Taeil was wedged up against his side. He snorted. "Are you into public sex? That’s pretty bold, for a virgin," he said, and Johnny bumped him with his hip.

" _Theoretically_ ," he said, and Taeil traced the patterns on his shirt over his abdomen. 

"Mm," said Taeil. "I can’t say I’ve ever thought about it before."

Johnny reached to pet Taeil’s hair, and Taeil, now almost lying on Johnny’s stomach, glanced up at him. Johnny could stare at Taeil forever. There was something glowing from inside him that made him look unreal, like there was no way the combination of all his facial features could’ve come together to create such a being. 

"It’s not that you’d become invisible," Taeil continued, thinking to himself and staring down at Johnny’s shirt. Taeil got caught up easily in hypothetical situations, which was endlessly entertaining. It was so _him_ to think in a way Johnny couldn’t bring himself to. "Something like misdirection? Like, people wouldn’t notice you unless they were outright looking for you. If we were touching, or you were interacting me." 

"Is that what happens when the shepherd interacts with seraphim?" 

Taeil nodded. "Shepherds, with the help of seraphim, can become very good at hiding. That’s what shepherd Taeyong, you know, the one before Ten, did for a while." 

"Do you know him?" Johnny asked suddenly, tilting his head up and narrowing his eyes jokingly. Sometimes they played like this, like a real couple, where Taeil belonged to Johnny and vice versa. Not that there was anything wrong with being exclusive, Johnny was just scared of being the one to bring it up and possibly ruin what they already had. Taeil had a hundred lifetimes on Johnny anyway, and Johnny would have to let him go someday, even if it were by his dying breath.

Taeil usually got a rise out of Johnny’s exaggerated jealousy, but this time, he looked distant. "It’s not something you need to know about," Taeil said in his usual airy voice. It had a bit of a sting though, as if warning Johnny not to press further. 

"Is it related to why you can’t leave the lake?" Johnny said anyway. He recognized social cues, he was just never one to act on them. Taeil had to know this, yet he’d latched onto Johnny anyway. It was like they were both attracted to the parts of each other that neither of them could ever have or understand. Johnny was skeptical and purposely resisted conventions, even if it meant losing himself, while Taeil followed the flow but learned to preserve his dignity within it. In accepting the world, Taeil was independent. Johnny was not. 

"Did Ten tell you that?" Taeil said coolly. "The kid should learn to keep his mouth shut."

_I want to know everything about you_ , Johnny wanted to say, but that would be pushing it. He already knew how Taeil liked to be fingered just right, deep and hard and unrelenting for a bit, and then he would come untouched with loud, uncontrolled moans. He knew how Taeil loved when Johnny sucked him off because Johnny wouldn’t do it for anyone else. And he knew Taeil could put on quite the show for Johnny even with just his normal, unexaggerated movements while Johnny watched, concentrating on Taeil’s skin, his eyes, his noises, all the things that were always there before but Johnny couldn’t see or touch or even perceive. 

But those things were just facts— preferences, statements. And that was what Johnny had always liked knowing. Why was it that now he wanted to know the hows and the whys and the _what were you before I met you_ s? 

"The short answer," Taeil said, surprising Johnny, "is that I’m what they call the 'lord of the land'. Basically by spiritually binding me to the lake, it purifies the surrounding land and also keeps me protected from malevolence," explained Taeil. "It’s a win-win situation."

"Besides that you can’t leave the lake," Johnny pointed out. 

Taeil shrugged. "Eh, adventures aren’t all they’re cut out to be." He glanced up at Johnny and put his hand on Johnny’s arm. "Not saying you shouldn’t be excited for yours. They’re just not for me anymore."

"Anymore?" said Johnny, and Taeil laughed.

"Okay, mister Curious. Haven’t we had enough for today?" he said, crawling up and kissing Johnny’s nose.

But no, it never felt like enough. Not compared to how much Taeil knew about him. 

Taeil must’ve seen the unsatisfied look on Johnny’s face. "In time," Taeil murmured.

Time wasn’t a luxury Johnny had. Time wasn’t a luxury _they_ had. Together. 

Ten came back from his duties at the shrine that day to Johnny pouring over Ten’s bookshelf. "Finally decided to get studying for when we leave, huh," Ten said, and Johnny jumped.

"Y-yeah," Johnny answered, and Ten laughed and fell back onto his bed.

"Kidding, I know you’ve been meeting up with Taeil," said Ten.

Honestly it was probably good that Ten put it out in the open. Johnny was notoriously bad at lying and even withholding the truth, but he was also at times too awkward to know when to divulge interesting news. Besides, what he and Taeil had, it still wasn’t really defined yet. _Meeting up_ was one way to put it, with the bonus of some theoretical chitchat and a whole lot of mind-blowing, exploratory sex, but Ten didn’t need to know that. 

"How do you like him?" Ten asked.

"I— I like him," Johnny replied. 

"So much that you want to find out more, huh?" Ten said, leaning over to see what Johnny was looking at. Most of the books had to do with how to sense and bond with seraphim, famous shepherds and their seraphim over the centuries, true names and purification powers, and other shepherd responsibilities. Johnny didn’t even know what he was looking for; all of this could pertain to Taeil, or none of it at all.

"What’s lord of the land?" Johnny asked, trying to seem casual, but Ten hummed knowingly. "I mean, I know what it is, but can we— can he undo it?"

"No," Ten replied firmly. "Once you’re bound to the land, that’s kinda it. Most seraphim these days consider it an honor and volunteer. Usually the shepherd at the time will choose and perform the ceremony."

"Oh," Johnny said.

"Why, wishing Taeil weren’t bound to the lake?" Ten said. "That he could be my prime lord and come with us?"

"Kinda, yeah," Johnny said lamely. He was so transparent sometimes. 

Ten didn’t have anything good to say. "Sorry man," he replied in a way that was both unsympathetic and sad at the same time, like how he knew he would never quite be able to understand. Ten was the shepherd; he loved everyone the same, and he had a path laid out for him. Nothing could ever become more important to him than his duty, and he was ready to accept that. Johnny didn’t have that kind of conviction.

Johnny sat with his legs crossed at the foot of Ten’s bed, uncertain where else to look or what else to hope for. Not that it had really been a viable idea. Taeil or no Taeil, the journey with Ten would be spectacular. Just, knowing Taeil could never be a part of it put a damper on things that wasn’t there before. And part of Johnny wished he wouldn’t have practiced sensing the seraphim or gained affinity or anything until after he and Ten had already left, until Taeil was out of the picture. Part of Johnny wished they’d never met. But wishing to change the past was the most useless part of knowing the past at all. "Do you know how long he’s been there?" Johnny said instead, and Ten rubbed his chin.

"Sorry, don’t know that, either. Taeil isn’t very open about himself," Ten said. Taeil made you feel warm, like you wanted to trust him without even knowing anything about him. Johnny wondered if that was true of all seraphs, but Ten said quite the contrary. Some were cold and calculating, some overshared on the regular. "They’re kinda just like us," said Ten. "All different, but serve the world in their own individual ways."

"But how could you— seraphim live for a long time, right?" Johnny said, and Ten nodded. "How could you commit yourself to a single place for centuries, not thinking something might change your mind?"

"I’m sure Taeil has his reasons," said Ten. "I mean, I committed to being the shepherd, and that’s basically my entire life."

Johnny trudged back to his bed at the grim reminder and threw off his vest and trousers, crawling under his covers in socks. 

"Look at it this way," Ten said, capping the lantern on his side of the room. "If he hadn’t committed to becoming lord of the land, where would he be now? You guys never would’ve met."

And times would’ve been simpler, and maybe better that way. Johnny groaned and imagined Taeil’s fingers tracing up the insides of his forearms.

—

"So Ten told me you can’t un-lord yourself," Johnny said the next time he met Taeil. He figured he’d be upfront with it, because maybe being honest about it with Taeil would help him figure out what he wanted for _himself_.

"You’re still thinking about that?" Taeil said with a light laugh. Noticing Johnny’s serious look, he added, "Well, he would be correct."

Johnny had been attending to the shrine with Ten obediently, which he learned was erected for a shepherd several generations back but had been kept up by the townspeople, who now used it to worship the lord of the land. Johnny sniffed; most of them probably didn’t know that his name was Taeil and that he took the form of a 20-something year old young man who let his hair grow out a little too long at the back and had the most kissable lips on this side of the universe. 

They were in Johnny’s room today again. Johnny never felt guilty for lazing a weekend afternoon away with Taeil, who was a seraph; thereby, Johnny was studying. Kind of. "I’m learning about it for _you_ ," Johnny said, and Taeil sighed.

"I know, and I’m happy," said Taeil. He curled up against Johnny’s side again, a habit he’d picked up as autumn approached. Johnny wondered if seraphs ever got cold, and if Taeil was cold living by the lake all this time. Johnny remembered some pretty harsh winters growing up; there was snow, and the wind blew strong across the water and nearly knocked you over into the snowdrifts on some days. "I just don’t want you to accidentally learn something you’re better off not knowing."

"I thought the more you knew, the better," Johnny said to the ceiling. "You’re the one who said we need to know the past."

"And you’re the one who said we don’t," Taeil mumbled into Johnny’s side, right against his rib, and Johnny snorted a little from the ticklish sensation. He ruffled Taeil’s hair with the underside of his arm and curled Taeil up on top of him. "It used to be that sometimes people could turn malevolent just from knowing something so horrible they were ignorant of before," Taeil said softly, rolling over onto Johnny’s abdomen and looking down at him. "You know, ignorance is bliss."

"Not for me," Johnny protested. He grinned up at Taeil, holding his waist. "I’ll turn into a hellion if you leave me hanging like this."

"Silly," Taeil said, flopping down on Johnny’s chest and kissing him softly. "I don’t sense an ounce of malevolence from you."

"All the more reason to tell me, then," said Johnny, and Taeil swatted at his chest.

"You’re the worst."

They made love that afternoon as the last of the summer thunderstorms pounded into the roof, drowning out the sounds of Taeil sobbing and whining and screaming for Johnny to the outside world, and Johnny wouldn't have had it any other way. He wanted to be the only one who got to see and hear Taeil like this, even if Johnny only lived a hundred years and Taeil lived a thousand. Taeil came twice, once when Johnny was taking his time prepping him, slow and teasing and making sure he was ready, and once when Johnny fucked him proper and came inside him and growled Taeil’s name into his shoulder. 

"When was the first shepherd?" Johnny said after they cleaned themselves up and were back to cuddling on his bed. Like thunderstorms, their sex always seemed to end too quickly, even when Johnny made sure to prep Taeil nice and slow. Maybe because they were both too sensitive to each other; maybe it was a human-seraph thing.

"Uhm," Taeil said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. Johnny smiled fondly watching him. "Maybe… shepherd Artorious? There was a lot of malevolence before that, and he suppressed it with the power of Innominat."

"Hm," replied Johnny, and Taeil laughed.

"I know it’s all going over your head. You don’t have to pretend to be interested."

Johnny turned and kissed Taeil’s temple. "I’m just thinking, you know, if he was the first one to do _that_ , then we could be the first ones to, like… un-lord a lord of the land."

"Oh, Johnny," Taeil said in a tone like he was talking to a kid. Johnny frowned accordingly. "You know, a wise person once told me: 'Have the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom accept the things you cannot.'"

Johnny grunted. "That’s why I’m going on this journey with Ten," Johnny said. "There shouldn’t be anything in this world that you can’t change."

"Some realist you are," said Taeil, rolling his eyes. "You know, sometimes you just have to make do with what life gives you. It’s called growing up and making decisions."

"It’s not like that," Johnny protested. He was wide awake now, and his brain was running on turbo mode. He’d never given much thought as to why he lived by the maxims he did other than that he was afraid. Maybe Taeil had the saying backward: maybe it was courage you needed to accept the things that you couldn’t change. Or maybe the whole thing was just bullshit. 

Taeil was talking down to him, which Johnny low key hated. Sure, Taeil was older and more knowledgeable than Johnny in pretty much every way, but it felt like a weird imbalance of power. It would be okay if Taeil just knew more about the world than Johnny; that came with being alive for hundreds of years, anyway. But Taeil also held the power of knowledge about Johnny himself, the fate of the two of them, and the power to disappear from right under Johnny’s nose. Technically, Johnny was the one who was leaving. But the lake was big, and if Taeil never showed his face in front of Johnny again, Johnny wouldn’t be all the wiser. 

"Is there any place you’d like to go in particular?" Taeil asked, voice softer then. He must’ve felt bad. For how ditsy he could be sometimes, he certainly picked up on emotions well. Johnny could shift his mood just the slightest, and Taeil would subconsciously react to it. When this whole thing started as a casual fling, Taeil waltzed in and out just like how Johnny imagined he would. There were no overheads and no obligations. That was why their most difficult times of existence were when Johnny himself didn’t know how he felt anymore. Or when Johnny knew how he felt, but didn’t want to admit it to himself.

Johnny wasn’t much of a studier in school and just did the bare minimum necessary to get by. Most of the stuff they taught was much too philosophical and completely useless. You couldn’t _do_ anything with it. He was drawing a blank when trying to think of accessible cities other than Camlann. Taeil was on Johnny's mind at the moment, so the first place he thought to say was: "Ladylake."

Taeil snorted. "Oh, you’ve been to Derris Kharlan. Don’t think Ladylake is anything special compared to there."

"No, but I really kinda do want to go," Jonny protested.

Taeil turned to him. "Even if you could go out into the— you know, _real_ world?"

There was Silicon Valley. There was Seoul, and Tokyo. There was Shanghai, and San Francisco, and all these grand places with giant rectangular towers made of glass that reached higher than the eye could see. And they would always be there because the people built them that way. They were inanimate— they would stay wherever you wanted them to. But Taeil wasn’t; Taeil wouldn’t always be there. If Johnny left, Taeil would move on.

"This _is_ the real world," Johnny said, and Taeil smiled, his eyes glittering.

They went to Ladylake that evening to watch the moon rise over the city. Taeil propelled a small boat over there while Johnny held on for dear life, and he nearly fell into the lake while trying to disembark onto a secluded bank just outside the city gates. Plus the merchants at the gates gave them a hard time until Johnny gave Ten’s name, which was the first time in ages Johnny had used Ten’s status for his own benefit. He felt light about it, though, and he and Taeil both laughed when they got inside, Taeil ducking through the crowd and pointing out the aqueduct in a corner of the city near the gates. "Best place in the whole world to look at the sky," Taeil said. "And be close to the water at the same time."

"Better than the cliff in my backyard?" Johnny said, huffing as he heaved himself over the rocky structure and onto the towers that framed the mill. Taeil was right; as long as he held onto Johnny, no one paid them any mind even though they were breaking probably 1000 laws by climbing onto the wall to look at the moon. 

Taeil hummed. "With you? No. When you leave? Probably yes."

Johnny was quiet then, watching the blue banners flanking the mill blow underneath his feet. Taeil was already prepared for Johnny and Ten’s departure, which was scheduled to for a week from now. He didn’t seem too broken up about it, either. Of course, Taeil had a thousand years on Johnny; Taeil wouldn’t let some young adult fuckboy overwhelmed from experiencing the majesty of the seraphim for the first time to change the course of his life.

They watched the moon in silence. The darker the sky got, the more visible its details were, the intricacies of its craters and mountains. "This is where I used to sit before you came around, anyway," Taeil said quietly, swinging his feet. "Though I don’t remember it much."

"Why not?" Johnny said.

Taeil sighed. "I was young."

Johnny snorted. "Were you?" he said a little sarcastically. Johnny’s lifetime was probably only a fraction of Taeil’s anyway.

"I’m serious," Taeil said, and Johnny sniffed himself to composure quickly. "I had a childhood far away, and when I first got here everything seemed so grand and blue."

The sky was now dark, and the only people still milling about on the streets were restaurant owners cleaning up outside and young couples stumbling back from bars. Taeil hopped down from the wall quickly, leaving Johnny scrambling not to be noticed. No one spared him much attention anyway, though. "I want to know," Johnny said, following after Taeil. "Please, tell me."

"It’s not like I haven’t been thinking about it," Taeil said. The wind was blowing softly into their faces, carrying Taeil’s voice a ways behind him. Johnny might not have heard him otherwise. "I finally figured if you can’t handle this, then you’d be no match to journey alongside the shepherd."

Johnny was quiet, pondering that as they pushed off the shore and into the lake. In the darkness, the open water was slightly terrifying. You couldn’t tell what was water, what was sky, and what was the shadows of the trees. Taeil seemed to have no problem navigating them back, though. "I don’t understand," said Johnny, though he kind of did. Taeil meant that if he couldn’t handle the simplest of truths, then he wouldn’t be able to handle any malevolence in its purest form. It was like a test. 

But Taeil unexpectedly heaved Johnny up out of the boat when they bumped up against the shore and wrapped his arms around Johnny’s torso. He buried his face into Johnny’s chest, taking in a deep breath imbued with the smell of Johnny. "You really are the worst," Taeil said, muffled with a light laugh. "Making me explain it like this, word for word."

"I like the sound of your voice," Johnny said quietly, stroking Taeil’s hair.

Taeil snorted. "It’s because you’re leaving, okay? There, I admitted it."

Johnny looked up at the sky and noticed that when the moon was bright like this, it blocked out the stars. "What is there to admit?" he said.

"That I’ll miss you," said Taeil, bumping his nose and forehead into Johnny’s chest again. "That I’m in love with you."

Johnny was quiet. There was part of him that already knew Taeil loved him back. That didn’t make it any better. In fact, it just made things worse, because if given the choice, Johnny would’ve wanted at least one of them to be happy and move on. And now neither of them could.

"I might have done something kinda really stupid when I was a kid," Taeil said sullenly, picking at the grass again. They decided to settle on the cliff for a little while longer instead of going back into Johnny’s room, as if trying to drag the day on for as long as possible. When Taeil was nervous, he alternated between looking completely calm and fidgeting uncontrollably. He generally fidgeted more when he was alone with Johnny. "I was like you once: existential, brooding, emo. I didn't believe in seraphim and magic and all that."

"But you _are_ a seraph," Johnny said, and Taeil looked out into the lake.

"That just shows how bad it was," he said, swinging his legs stiffly. "I didn’t believe in _myself_. I constantly questioned my own existence and purpose in the world. It was actually pretty depressing." The way he said this was light, like he didn’t know what to do with his own emotions. "For a kid to think about that heavy stuff, I mean. I was only like 10. What did I know?"

Johnny found himself wondering what Taeil was like as a child. What he looked like, how people— or other seraphs treated him; what were his interests, how was his personality? Did he glow the same way he did now? Or was he truly sullen— the shy and quiet kind, scaring everyone away? And why had all of Ten’s friends been adults? "I didn’t know seraph children… were a thing," Johnny said stupidly.

Taeil laughed. "Yes, they exist, but they don't live in Elysia, so Ten wouldn't have known. You can’t expect a bunch of rowdy, stupid children to raise the shepherd." 

Johnny contemplated this. When Ten first arrived in Camlann, he was like an adult channeling through a kid’s body. His attitude resembled that of an overexcited child who knew enough to not want to get ahead of himself. He wanted, like every child did, to belong, but was born across a chasm so wide he could never cross it. The chasm, of course, was filled with the knowledge, reverence, and glory of being the shepherd. But those things wouldn’t have mattered to just a child. Children wanted the simple pleasures in life, things they could see and touch, like the love of a mother or a joke shared among friends. Johnny thought it probably would’ve been a good thing, actually, for Ten to have been raised around some children. 

"I used to live out in Goddodin, you know," Taeil said quietly. 

"That's near the Biroclef Ridge," said Johnny. People called it the forgotten city. It was buried away under the cliffs and was always the last to receive resources from the capital. The terrain to get there was rocky and treacherous, too, dissuading merchants from making the trip. It might not have even lasted as a city at all were it not for people’s innate curiosity. Sometimes caravans full of land pirates and cartographers journeyed out there anyway, wanting to possibly see over the ridge and into the world beyond. Johnny always dreamed of joining one of those crews before Ten came. 

Taeil nodded. "It was quiet and sad out there. Windy, too," he said. Even though Johnny’s house was a little way’s out from Camlann, it was still within walking distance, and the road was constantly bustling with travelers and the regular townspeople. Johnny had always taken that for granted. "We didn't feel the resonance of the shepherd out in that corner of the world, but we seraphs still had our job to do," Taeil continued. "We worked even harder, since the loneliness was a breeding ground for malevolence. The best we could do was keep everyone in a state of nothingness."

Johnny wondered what _nothingness_ felt like. Like being asleep with no dreams, or a dream with no background. Maybe it was like how life would be without Taeil, now that they had met. 

"It was bad," Taeil said. He looked down then at the moon’s reflection in the lake. "It was so bad, I— I ran away."

Taeil apparently was an attentive kid and studied on his own because out in Goddodin, there was really nothing better to do. And he knew that buried deep in the tunnels under the Biroclef Ridge was where the fire shrine Igraine led to the Vatican and out into Vatican City. He, like any other kid, needed motivation, hope, and some semblance of excitement in life. What was he to do other than to make his own?

"The stories were true," Taeil began, a little glimmer in his eye like he was remembering fondly about a family member. He described the technology out there being nothing like they had, and it was only after he arrived and wandered a significant distance that he realized he had no idea where he was or what he was doing. Getting lost out there was different than here, because everything went so far and moved so fast. "That was what struck me, I think," Taeil recalled, folding his knees in on himself. "How fast everything was. The trains, the cars— people even walked faster out there, in a rush and looking down at their little gadgets. It made me feel even more lost than I already was."

Johnny wordlessly put his hand on Taeil's knee, and Taeil stiffened a bit before taking Johnny's hand in his own smaller one. 

"But Johnny," he continued. "There was so much _malevolence_." There was a quiver in Taeil’s voice that was almost palpable. Taeil had never seemed so small before, despite his stature being small on the regular. "Much more than I even knew could exist in the world."

Johnny thought back to when Ten described the violence in the world before the shepherd. People fought and killed each other, and they begged for death from their own families to be put out of misery. 

"Everyone looked like a monster in pretty clothing," Taeil said, staring at the water. "They’d been hellions for so long they didn’t even see it anymore. They ignored the malevolence by making up other words for it. Greed, narcissism, envy, wrath. Such complicated, pretty words for something so simple."

There were wars, Taeil explained, but people ignored them. Innocent people died, but it was just a part of everyday life. The poorest of the poor had no way of climbing out of the hellholes they’d been born in. But no one cared.

"I think I must've been out there for a month or so before Taeyong found me," Taeil said.

"The shepherd Taeyong," Johnny murmured, and Taeil nodded.

"I had no idea where I was or how far I'd wandered from here. Even if the humans there _could_ see me I don't think anyone would've noticed. They were so caught up in themselves." 

Maybe that was how nothingness felt. Living but not being able to see what was right in front of you. Not like how Johnny was before, stubbornly rejecting the seraphim, because at least he was interacting with their existence. No, those people just ignored. They blamed people’s poverty on their own 'laziness'. They thought people lived in their grey, depressed minds for years because they _wanted_ to. 

"You know, it was really the children that got to me," Taeil said, shifting in his seat. His voice got even smaller, like he knew he was revealing too much. Like this was the part of the story where, when you didn’t think it could get any worse, it suddenly did. "The children left in the streets or being hit by their parents for crying. I never thought I was a kid-person, but I was only 10 then."

In retrospect, Taeil probably didn’t have to go on for Johnny— somewhere deep down in a place he wanted so badly to deny— to get what he was hinting at. Like he had understood on some level but thought if he closed his eyes, it would all go away. But Johnny was too frozen to stop Taeil from talking. All he could do was dart his eyes around, back and forth between Taeil and the lake, as Taeil refused to meet his gaze.

"The kid seemed abandoned," continued Taeil, like he was fumbling for an excuse, even after so many years. "What was I supposed to do?" He looked at his hands. There was dirt under his nails that looked like blood in the moonlight. "I took him with me. Back here."

Taeil's lips hovered above Johnny's fingers as he lowered his chin onto his knees and continued staring at the water even though he must've seen Johnny's gaze boring holes into his side. "That kid— that was you."

Even though Johnny knew it was coming, it still felt like a punch to the gut. Not painful, but enough to knock the breath right out of you. He wasn’t even standing and he felt his knees buckle. He wanted to sink into the dirt. "So my mom isn't my real mom," was all Johnny could say. Everything else seemed too heavy, like he might start crying, or he might get angry, which was the last thing he wanted.

Taeil shook his head. "She was just living in this house. A nice lady with a high affinity to seraphim, because she and her family had been living so close to Elysia for so long. Taeyong said he knew her, so we dropped you off there."

Johnny’s world had been flipped so many times this past summer that it seemed like this was just another layer on top of it all. Yet he’d had no reason to doubt that the one thing that kept him grounded, the place he was raised, and the people who surrounded him, weren’t real at all. 

"I think if Taeyong hadn't found me, I would've become a dragon," Taeil said. "The first one in ages."

And it wasn’t about just Johnny or just Taeil. You couldn’t just ignore one side of the story. It was a series of events that just folded into one another, one providing the basis for the next. It was like their destinies were intricately linked, and Johnny felt himself hold onto Taeil tighter. Johnny knew rationally that what Taeil did was selfish and wrong, but now they shared that wrongness. And instead of blaming Taeil for it, Johnny wanted to wrap around him and tell him he was forgiven.

"All we could think to do," Taeil continued, "was to bind me with the lake. If I became lord of the land and did my prayers every day, the malevolence would be dispelled by the earthpulse. All the other seraphim hated me. They thought I was contagious or something."

Taeyong went far away after that and hovered along the edges of their world, near Biroclef and Goddodin, and Taeil purposely avoided Johnny. It was Taeyong's idea to bring young Ten into Johnny's house: it might change the way Johnny was predisposed to think while Johnny could provide some sort of sounding board and anchor for Ten. Except now Ten was the shepherd and Johnny was Confused: it wasn't Ten who'd ended up changing him, it was Taeil.

"So there's your answer," Taeil said, slipping his hand out of Johnny's and standing up. He still looked small even with Johnny looking up at him. Like if Johnny were to reach out for him now, Taeil would slip between his fingers. "Believe it if you want."

Johnny wanted to grasp at Taeil and pull him back, but all his limbs seemed to be moving in slow motion while Taeil was as nimble and evasive as ever. "But I guess you were right," Taeil said, backing away. "Everything does have a reason. Sometimes it's just better not knowing it."

—

Johnny sat out there for a long time after that. He considered chasing after Taeil, but it didn't seem appropriate; Taeil could hide, and he was way faster than Johnny. There wasn’t any reason to prove how much Johnny loved Taeil; Taeil _knew_ this. And even if there were, if you loved someone, you had to let them go.

About Moon Taeil there were three indisputable truths that he'd either concealed or flat out lied about until now:   
1\. He had been to the world beyond the Biroclef Ridge and survived to tell the tale,   
2\. He was not actually much older than Johnny, though he did still have a longer life expectancy, and  
3\. He was in love with Johnny, and Johnny loved him back.

And despite it all, Johnny couldn't stay mad at him. He couldn't blame him for lying because he'd known the malevolence like an old friend. He'd seen it and almost lost his life, and all the peace the shepherds of generations past had been working toward, to it. In a world where everything was safe and peaceful, you just wanted to cover up the bad instead of trust that it would resolve on its own. Even seraphs had leaps of faith they couldn’t make alone. And if anyone knew being alone, it was Taeil.

Ten came out a while later with a stretch and a loud yawn, alerting Johnny to his presence. "It's been ages since you came back later than me," Ten said, sitting down next to Johnny. He opened his mouth to speak but seemed to note the atmosphere and decided against it.

There was nothing going on tomorrow; it was a Saturday, and Ten had just wrapped up his shepherd training for the summer. And Johnny somehow intuitively knew Taeil wouldn't be coming to visit.

"I think I love him," Johnny said out of the blue.

"I think he loves you back," Ten replied.

"What do I do," Johnny wondered aloud, not really to Ten or anyone in particular.

"I think you know the only thing you can do," Ten said. Johnny was beginning to understand why Ten spent all that time just "looking" into the water: he wasn’t really looking at all. He was in some sort of headspace where you couldn’t even move enough to tear your eyes away from whatever you were looking at before. The lake, in its complicated mix of calmness and turbulence, seemed to enable that headspace in people. After a few minutes more of listening to the waves, Ten stood up. "There's a changing of the guard ceremony at the shrine the day after tomorrow," he said, stretching again. "It's not, like, mandatory for squires, but I think someone you'll want to meet will be there."

—

Moon Taeil was not there, much to Johnny's dismay. Though Ten had clearly said someone Johnny would want to _meet_ , indicating Johnny had never met them before, but Johnny couldn't help but hope to see Taeil again. Even if Taeil had been there, what would Johnny say? What _could_ he say? It seemed disingenuous to apologize; neither of them had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t the time or place for a kiss-and-make-up. 

Johnny felt awkward and out of place in the presence of some of the most important religious and political figures in the city, all having come to see Ten receive the shepherd's clothing from the previous shepherd. A skinny, nasally-voiced man, a squire of the previous shepherd, did most of the talking throughout the ceremony. Johnny sat in the front row and stared at the colorful, fire-like carpet of maple leaves underneath and surrounding the shrine, wondering if he was blocking anyone’s view. He thought about if Taeil were sitting behind him, he wouldn’t be able to see anything. He wondered what Taeil would be doing right about now. He wondered how long it would take for him to scour the entire lake in search of Taeil.

It wasn't until the actual, physical process of handing over the clothing that Taeyong came out. 

Johnny recognized him right away; there was something intuitive about knowing you were in his presence. Maybe he'd been concealing himself with his seraphs until it was time. 

There were plenty of portraits painted of Taeyong in his prime, and they were known for being extravagant, frivolous, and grossly exaggerated. Johnny was expecting someone frail and average, and though Taeyong did seem a bit frail without his shepherd’s garb, the one thing the portraits couldn’t capture justly was the depth of emotion in his face. He didn't look almost double Johnny's age; he wouldn't have looked much older than Johnny himself were it not for the wrinkles, tired eyelids, and hollowed out cheeks. There was something distinctly sad in his eyes, even as he smiled sincerely at Ten and bowed a little as Ten accepted the newly mended and cleaned cape.

_How could this be the previous shepherd_ , Johnny would’ve whispered had Taeil been there, and they would’ve had a little laugh about it. _Could you imagine him slaying dragons?_ Now, instead, Johnny stared and wondered how Taeyong had looked to Taeil when he was all alone in the world. Probably like a beacon of light, no matter how angry Taeyong had been with Taeil for running away. At least he cared enough to chase after him.

Johnny remained in his seat even after everyone got up to mingle and socialize. There was really no one Johnny knew besides Ten, who was the guest of honor and continuously occupied with some other important person’s presence. 

"Hey," someone said in a frazzled, deep-set voice. Johnny looked up. It was Taeyong, who’d taken a seat next to him without him noticing. "In case you’re wondering, yes, I do mostly like to stay out of the spotlight."

Johnny laughed humorlessly. 

Taeyong seemed stiff at the podium, but now that he was alone with Johnny, his presence felt a lot more casual, like he couldn’t be assed to care. "You know, I didn’t get my first squire until several years down the road," he said. His voice, though low, was tonal, like they were at an actual cocktail party instead of a spiritual gathering.

Johnny grunted in acknowledgement, though he didn’t know what Taeyong was getting at.

"You probably think I’m a wimp," Taeyong continued, looking at Ten, glowing in the candlelight. "I kind of am, compared to Ten. He’s a good kid."

"I know," Johnny replied.

Taeyong nodded at hearing Johnny’s voice. "He has the whole world at his side," Taeyong said. He then added quietly, "Some don’t have that luxury."

Johnny froze then. Of course Taeyong would know. Taeyong was Taeil’s guardian, and now he’d come to test Johnny. Or to kill him, like the grim reaper. After a while, Johnny said weakly, "What do I do?"

Taeyong hummed. "Only you can make that decision," he said, punching Johnny’s shoulder lightly. It felt wrong and too familiar, but it was comforting nonetheless. "You know, the shepherd and seraphim exist so that the rest of us can be selfish sometimes and not feel bad about it." 

"Should you really be saying that?" Johnny said hesitantly. "You’re the shepherd."

"That’s my job," Taeyong replied, happier than his sad eyes looked. He seemed relieved that soon, he’d no longer have to bear the burden. "I’m an educator. I’m telling you what the shepherd would want you to do."

—

The walk around the lake to Ladylake took three hours, but it was worth it. It was a nice walk, and it made Johnny feel like a kid again. Except now he could no longer rely on Ten to accompany him— the world needed Ten, and Johnny was old enough to make decisions on his own. Taeil was up on the aqueduct and seemed surprised to see Johnny. It was nighttime by the time Johnny arrived; he was lucky to have caught Taeil before he left.

"Taeil!" Johnny called, cupping his hands around his mouth. He was mildly sweaty and his hair was windblown and his shoes were caked with mud from accidentally stepping into the too-soft areas of the bank while attempting to scale the lake. Passersby paused for a moment to look up at the wall and then, seeing nothing, stared at Johnny and moved on after a while. "Moon Taeil, I’m in love with you!"

"Do you have to be so embarrassing about it?" Taeil called back, slipping into a glow of light and then appearing right in front of Johnny and clasping their hands together. 

"Did you love it?" said Johnny, kissing the tip of Taeil’s nose.

Taeil closed his eyes and smiled. "Yes," he said, trailing his hands up to Johnny’s face and then to his hair, his fingers catching in the knots. He pulled Johnny down for a hard kiss that Johnny returned, tightening his grip on Taeil’s waist. Taeil’s kisses were always hot, no matter how gentle and loving they were. There was something tantalizingly plush and luxurious about his lips that made Johnny want to devour them. 

"I have to be up early tomorrow," Johnny murmured, and Taeil stiffened for a moment before relaxing in Johnny’s hold while his shoulders sunk a little.

"Ah, right," he breathed.

Johnny grinned cheekily and pressed light kisses to Taeil’s lips, surprising him. Taeil kept laughing quietly between the kisses and tilting his head back. "To see Ten off," Johnny mumbled into Taeil’s chin.

Taeil gasped then, looking up at Johnny, and Johnny took the opportunity to close his lips over Taeil’s, effectively cutting off anything he was about to say. Taeil made a surprised, satisfied noise and gladly returned the kiss. Johnny couldn’t get enough of Taeil then— his skin, his lips, the scent of his breath, which was stale and a bit woodsy. Taeil arched his back and molded himself right up against Johnny’s body as if trying to get even closer, and Johnny wrapped around him. 

—

_Meet me at the Ladylake sanctuary in a week_ were Ten’s parting instructions. Apparently, you could be a squire without physically having to travel with the shepherd. Ten had said this the morning he left in such simple, obvious terms that both Johnny and Taeil felt like idiots. That also meant in kind that Ten expected Johnny to hold down the fort in Ladylake, which meant that Johnny actually had to have a clerical day job, tend to the shrine, and collect the offerings to the lord of the land. Taeil said that he’d kept some of the offerings over the years for his own personal amusement, like one time he found a dangerous, rare aphrodisiac in there, and one time he found a dildo. 

Of course, Johnny and Taeil had a lot of sex when Ten left and Johnny’s mother spent the whole week frantically delivering prickleboar stew and mabo tofu to whatever inn Ten was staying at in Ladylake. Taeyong, who had decided to stay in the area for a little while, said, "You’re spoiling him."

"He may be the shepherd, but he’s still my son," Johnny’s mom retorted back. It was all resolved when she offered to give Taeyong the recipe after he lingered around her for a while but was too awkward to ask for it. She even made him extra to take with him when he visited Elysia and invited him to stop by on his journey back. "After all you’ve done for us," she said.

"Some would disagree," Taeil said from the doorway, and Johnny’s mom looked directly at him and smiled gently.

"Well, you can be sure the people of Camlann and Ladylake will always welcome you into their hearts."

Taeil mumbled something unintelligible, embarrassed, and Taeyong clapped his back. "Take care of him," Taeyong said quietly to Johnny. "He’s still not used to it." And then Taeyong launched into explaining how seraphs usually formed from clusters of pure mana, but how he met a seraph named Sicheng not too long ago who had been reborn from a human but retained none of his human memories.

"Think I can manage that when I die?" Johnny said as they were lying in his small bed together, Taeil huddled up between Johnny and the wall.

"Maybe if you worship me enough," Taeil sang, and Johnny grinned wolfishly and stroked his hand down Taeil’s thigh. Taeil laughed and squirmed, keening at Johnny’s touch. "You won’t remember me," he said, placing his hand on top of Johnny’s.

"I’ll find you anyway," Johnny replied.

"Fine, then I’ll wait," Taeil said. Johnny nodded. He knew this was unfair to ask of Taeil, but it didn’t seem right to ask him not to. "You’ll always know where to look," Taeil added. His voice mixed with the sound of the waves that lulled Johnny to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> \- As usual, the "inspired by" is me setting the story in that universe, but the plot is more or less my own and I invented a bunch of non-canonical-lore so it would go with my plot orz. I hope it wasn't too confusing. Thank you for reading and leaving kudos and comments!


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